egal. >> rubio is a rising star in the republican party but it doesn't take long for his speech to be interrupted. >> it is an important issue, in our community it's a gateway issue. >> why aren't you (inaudible). >> please help us. (inaudible). >> we're going to kick out. >> we don't believe marco

rubio's support -- >> what is your name? >> these young activates call themselves dreamers. part of a nationwide movement campaigning for the dream act, legislation that would give undocumented youth who finished high school a pathway to citizenship. >> for somebody to understand what undocumented is, it's basically saying you're invisible to people, you don't have an identification, there's such thing as you don't have an identity, you are living in the shadows. >> jose saucedo and his friends know at any moment they can be placed into detention and deported to a country they barely know. >> i could have been pulled over by the cops for interrupting such an important meeting but at the same time it's a risk we take every day stepping out of our houses. >> no we can't being live the lives of 11 million people.

>> there is another reason 11 million latinos aren't impressed with coe rubio, the geo group, with which houses many of the detainees. >> it was october, of 2011, here was this guy, that said cornell was -- >> the company she's talking about nell is now owned by geo. >> going to be rounding up hundreds of thousands of people and the federal business is going to be the best business for us. >> since 9/11 the revenues have doubled to over $1 billion a year for the country's two largest private prison companies, cca or the corrections corporation of america and geo. the vast majority of the people held

in, detection centers. >> keeping us safe from foreign terrorism. it makes no sense but it's making a lot of money for a lot of people. >> this looks like a florida retirement home. but behind the pink walls and palm trees is a detention center. this is th broward detention center. they were anxious to show it to us, it was one of their nicest facilities. >> broward is one of 250 detention facilities contracted by immigrations and being cch it's to facilitate the removal

from the united states of people when they're ordered removed. >> immigration detention has a dark history. hundreds of cases of physical and sexual abuse have been documented. from 2003, to 2009, over 100 people died in ice custody. the obama administration announced they would reform the system. among ice officials, broward is held up as a model of that reform. >> what you'll see in broward as compared to certainly a county jail or some of our other more secure detention facility is a lot of freedom of movement, you see an interior space where people when they leave their rooms and they're housed in rooms rather than cells are pretty much free to walk anywhere between the perimeter of the -- within the perimeter

of the building including outside. >> relatively speaking it looks great, it's probably the facility where most people want to be if they have to be in detention. but it's certainly not an alternative to detention which we were being told by officials it was, when it first opened. >> cheryl has been defending immigrant rights,. >> 80% of immigrants from detention have no attorney and no right to an attorney. >> how can you be in the legal system and not be entitled to an attorney? isn't it a guarantee? >> it's a guarantee if you are in criminal court. it's not a guarantee if you simply facing removal because of an immigration violation. >> cheryl has been inside every detention facility in the state. she says everyone night is there for a violation of civil not criminal laws. that locking them up when they

pose no threat makes no sense. >> we should be releasing people who pose, you know, no risk to communities, who aren't a security risk. who have equities here, rather than rounding up more and more people. >> cheryl arranged for us to meet one of her clients who was recently released. she lives over an hour's drive from miami. >> this is ahomestead, florida, a large mexican population south of miami, she was going to the broward detention center for six months. >> alejandra, not her real name, had had years of abuse from her husband. she hoped to have asylum in the united states. a few months after arriving

alejandra was on the bus when she was stopped by immigration officials. >> they didn't ask for everyone's papers? >> no, no [ spanish ] >> she was hand cuftd and spent a couple of nights at the local jail before being transferre transferred to broward. [ spanish ] >> alejandra is still fighting her immigration case. she is one of the lucky few to get out without being deported. [ spanish ] if >> if you had an american company using undocumented labor and paying them a dollar a day

to offset their cost what should happen to that company? >> so we go after the employers, we try and bring criminal cases wherever the facts allow that. >> what if that company is geo and ice and the workers in the facility are making the food and cleaning the bathrooms for $1 a day? >> you're talking about the chinese in our custody. they are allowed to work if they want to, that's totally voluntary. >> ayes wouldn't tell us how present operators might be saving by using detainee labor. unlike federal prisons, working in these facilities is voluntary. that was not made clear. [ spanish ] >> you know the parallel with the criminal justice system is fairly clear. if you look back at the prison

boom, starting in the late '70s into the '80s and the '90s a huge increase of people behind bars in this country in part driven by the drug war. fast-forward a couple of decades and here we've got this new population of people who are said to be dangerous and said to >> this isn't a new channel, this is a watershed moment in media for america. >> this entire region is utterly devastated. >> people our here are struggling. >> the fire jumped the highway we took earlier. >> your average viewer want's to actually understand how the health care law is going to help them or hurt them. >> they know they can get

extremist bickering somewhere else. >> people say that we're revolutionary. our revolution is just going back to doing the best in journalism. >> this is the place to go watch high quality journalism, period. new details on what lead to that deadly plane crash in new york. the commuter train was traveling far too fast, more than 80 miles an hour down the track. the question is why? lisa stark joins us from washington. what is the latest? >> that train should have been going at 30 miles an hour around the curve. there are no published reports this morning including from wabc, those reports indicate that the engineer, william rockefeller has said he may have zoned out at the controls. he may have dosed off and then

snapped awake too late to stop the train in time the ntsb will continue to interview the engineer and also look back at >> al jazeera america is a straight-forward news channel. >> its the most exciting thing to happen to american journalism in decades. >> we believe in digging deep. >> its unbiased, fact-based, in-depth journalism. >> you give them the facts, dispense with the fluff and get straight to the point. >> i'm on the ground every day finding stories that matter to you. >> in new orleans... >> seattle bureau... >> washington... >> detroit... >> chicago... >> nashville... >> los angeles... >> san francisco... >> al jazeera america, take a new look at news. >> every sunday night al jazeera america brings you controversial... >> both parties are owned by the corporations. >> ..entertaining >> it's fun to play with ideas. >> ...thought provoking >> get your damn education. >> ...surprising >> oh, absolutely! >> ...exclusive one-on-one interviews with the most interesting people of our time.

>> you're listening because you want to see what's going to happen. >> i want to know what works what do you know works? >> conversations you won't find anywhere else. >> talk to al jazeera. >> only on al jazeera america. >> oh my! >> the vilification, targeting of immigrants in the u.s. isn't anything new. but since the mi the mid 90s, after the oklahoma city bombings in 1995, congress passed laws expanding the grounds for the detention and deportation of noncitizens. for national security reasons and set up a registry for those from predominantl predominantlym countries. in 2003, the bush administration created ice, under the newly formed department of homeland security, its ten year goal was to deport every single

deportable noncitizen in the country. two years later the bush administration expanded the detention of criminal prosecution of undocumented people crossing the border. >> undocumented individuals to enter our country represents an obvious homeland security act. in 2006, congress passed the secure detention act, ice also promoted programs like secured communities and the criminal alien program that flagged potentially deportable immigrants. secure communities has expanded leading to a sharp rise in detentions and deportations. >> the highest number of roofnlingremovals in our histor. >> it has been another record breaking year in immigration and customs enforcement. >> more than 195,000 were convicted criminal aliens. that is itself another record. >> but the bottom line here is

that the population that they call criminal includes in the majority people who have been charged or convicted of criminal activity that is very, very minor, or things that you know the public may not even think of as criminal, possession of marijuana, disorderly conduct, traffic violations. >> the boca raton resort and club, inside, some of the country's most powerful financial institutions are meeting with investors. >> hey hey, ho ho, prisons have got to go. >> outside a small group of activists are protesting, calling on banks like wells fargo and bank of america. >> this is a community action in protest of the game conference and the game conference is a conference of investors that they spend their money investing

in for-profit private prisons. >> private prison's got just one goal. >> organizes communities against prison population all across the southern united states. >> they're in this business for a profit. what's good for business for them is great recidivism rate, three strikes you're out laws, mandatory minimum, that's great for laws for the private prison companies. and basically my personal feeling is they've locked up a number of the african americans in the community and now they're going after the immigrants. >> in washington, d.c, private lobbying, cost over $2 billion a year to lock them up. in their annual reports the securities & exchange commission both cca and geo emphasize that

any changes to immigration laws constitute a business risk. to contain that risk they spent at least $25 million on lobbying politicians since 9/11. >> where stockholders and company executives see the fob phenomenon is a money maker for them takings on a life of its own. they come in with their lobbyists and political connections, a revolving door, go work for the private serkd -- >> that's not something i'm really aware of, not something i can comment on. i can tell you this: we have detention facilities based often where the is. we decide -- on where the need is. we decide who gets detained, how many get detained within the overall resources that congress appropriates.

>> if anywhere can be called ground zero for for profit detention, it's texas. the country's first private prison opened in houston in 1984 to detain immigrants. today, the lone star state is home to at least 30 privately operatefederal facilities. one of them is the south texas detention complex the pearsall, where nearly 2,000 men are held. this massive ice facility south of san antonio is praited by geo. -- is operated by geo. >> it's not much to be here. not much to be here at all. just like jail. >> nas, or mohamed mustaco, is a singh forian are national. in 2007

naz warvetion sentenced to years in prison. there he met and eventually married his wife, hope. their future seemed bright but that changed abruptly on march 30th, 2011. >> i went to the door and opened and this ice agent with badge and gun and i was like well what's going on and they say are you a citizen, i say no. okay you have to come with us, you know, you have to be detained. >> and he said immigration police are here and i opened my eyes, why and who are they looking for? and he said me. they said that my felonies, my plea bargain violated my green card. >> i don't know how long the consequences or the action in my past are going ostay with me. >> his attorneys say we're trying okeep you out of prison. they didn't say nasri you understand you will be deported? >> naz was picked up by ice

because of laws that were passed in 2006 . suddenly shom lifting and marijuana possession became aggravated felonies. >> the law says the prison will detain that person. there is no discretion on the part of the judges to let those people out. they can't get a bond to fight their case. no matter what the amount of bond they can't get a bond. >> attorney jody goodwin has defended under mandatory detention in south texas. >> is it unusual to get mandatory detention? >> no, they use it all the time. >> today two-thirds of those in ice custody are held without bond. >> i don't understand why i'm detained here

longer than what i was actually convicted for. you know. because i was on operation. and for four years i haven't been a threat to society and suddenly i'm on mandatory detention. >> you know to them he is profit. that's why he's being detained. that's why he's not at home with me. he could be at home waiting. we could have been waiting this out for ten months together. >> naz had been checking in with his probation officer every month. he owned his home, paid his taxes and had just gotten his green card. when we spoke to him he had been in pearsall for nearly a year waiting for a final hearing. >> even prison we get contact visit. in prison you can go and have contact visit. but we only see through glass and about that thick of glass you know. and sometime me and hope she would put her hand on the glass,

and i would knock so she could feel me knocking. >> just days after this conversation we heard some good news. naz was unexpectedly released and his deportation recommendation was cancelled. after hearing his story during our interview .

>> and now a techknow minute...ñ

>> we have strengthened border security. beyond what many believed was possible.

they wanted more agents at the border. we now have more boots on the ground at the southwest border than at any time in our history. >> in an election year, the need to ramp up border enforcement has become a mantra among republicans and democrats alike. back in the rio grande valley, the men captured by border patrol had been taken to a processing center. if they don't have the right papers they'll be deported but first they will be criminally prosecuted for entering the country illegally. >> every single person that gets caught is going to be prosecuted. no matter what, no ifs ands or buts. nstead of picking them up and sending them back to their home country. we now prosecute them hold them in jail and then send them back to the country.

>> back here, due process doesn't count for much. it is largely irrelevant whether these grew up in the united states. within hours they will all be labeled convicted criminals. >> the numbers, the huge numbers of prosecution is just skyrocketing. >> what is driving that? money, money. is for law enforcement a success story and for prison industry a profit. ahead of the election powment promisepromise -- promised a transformation of policy. young immigrants seeking deportation but for most it's not enough. >> we believed that things were going to get better. unfortunately that hasn't happened. >> obama administration has led the deportation of more people than any of the other

administrations in years. >> i want everybody to be able to reach that american dream and that is why immigration reform is an economic imperative. >> these are people that just wanted a shot at the american dream and who love this country. and frankly you know many of these folks have contributed to greatly to our communities. >> and sometimes when i talk to immigration advocates, you know, they wish i could just bypass congress and change the law myself. but that's not how democracy works. >> but for those in the front lines of immigration enforcement, his words ring hollow. >> until everyone decides to speak with one solid voice, and develop that needed lobby, things aren't going ochange. because on the other -- to change. because on the other side, folks spend billions of dollars to lobby to keep the things the way they are.

>> until our government does something to make our immigration laws more humane and more fair then the kind of people we represent every day, and or that we hear about you know in immigrant communities are going to continue to suffer. >> and that's a sad state of affairs when you put a dollar sign on humanity. >> from our headquarters in new york, here are the headlines this hour. >> al jazeera america is the only news channel that brings you live news at the top of every hour. >> a deal in the senate may be at hand and just in the nick of time. >> thousands of new yorkers are marching in solidarity. >> we're following multiple developments on syria at this hour. >> every hour from reporters stationed around the world and across the country. >> only on al jazeera america.

>> this is al jazeera america live from new york city. i'm tony harris with a look at today's top stories. detroit is bankrupt. a judge made it official today. current bills will be paid but pensions are due to be cut. a new look at the death of yasser arafat. experts say the palestinian leader was not poisoned. and the moment that divers found a shipwreck survivor right after the tugboat sank. it is, indeed, a momentous day. that is how a federal judge ended theea